


Trade Winds

by mistrali



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistrali/pseuds/mistrali
Summary: For the Goldenlake Triathlon (Summer/Winter)
Relationships: Daja Kisubo & Polyam
Comments: 15
Kudos: 13
Collections: Tamora Pierce Discord's Collected Fics





	1. Hot Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: 200w
> 
> Daja and Polyam enjoy a hot drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I take no responsibility for chocolate and/or chilli cravings as a result of reading this fic.
> 
> The cups are made of bone china.

_Tenth Caravan Idaram, 1050 KF_

Taking the chocolate carefully off the flame, Polyam used a small silver ladle to divide it into two tiny white cups decorated with plum blossoms. The vessel, unadorned and made of a silver-and-tin alloy, tapered beautifully to a spout.  
  
“They’re ceramic with bone ash ground in,” said Polyam, seeing Daja’s gaze linger on them. “From Qidao, in southern Yanjing. They almost beat Tsaw’ha for haggling.” She held her steaming cup in both hands, sipped, and closed her eye.  
  
Awed - Polyam must have done some very fine negotiation, to be able to afford such treasures - Daja followed suit and frowned. A fiery aftertaste underscored the bitterness.  
  
“Is there cinnamon in this?” she guessed. But that wasn’t right. Cinnamon didn’t leave burning flecks on her tongue.  
  
“Ginger?”  
  
“Chilli!” exulted Polyam, her eye shining. “From the caravan, at twelve gold astrels a pound. Don’t make me remind you how much zokin we owe you,” she said, when Daja opened her mouth to protest. “It would be impolite, when you’re enjoying our hospitality.”  
  
Daja grinned - three years hadn’t tempered Polyam’s bluntness - and savoured her second sip. It was wonderful to be in a Trader caravan, surrounded by cool night breezes and rustling canvas.


	2. Striking a Deal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt ‘the gift that keeps giving’.

_Tenth Caravan Idaram, en route to The Realms of the Sun, the fifth day of Blood Moon, 1036 KF_

At sunset, after they’d halted for the night, one of the children delivered a summons to the gilav’s tent. Polyam sighed, set aside her currying brush and climbed down the caravan steps: when Gilav Chandrisa wanted something, you set to. Whatever the purpose of the visit, Polyam would bet gold it wasn’t to give her a pay rise and an extra tea ration. At least no-one can accuse Mother of favouring me, she thought wryly.

“Our customers are asking for another item like the iron tree, on credit, and Daja refuses to trade with anyone other than you,” said Mother. Her expression was flat in the soft golden glow of the lanterns, her voice as sour as though she’d swallowed a pickled lemon. “She turned down two of our best daka. I don’t know what you did to make her so set on you —” she glared at Polyam’s iron leg as though it had affronted her — “but we can’t afford to lose any more zokin.”

Polyam caught her breath. She’d thought Gold Ridge would be their last meeting as buyer and seller; that now Daja was Tsaw’ha, Mother would send a high-status daka to avoid spreading Polyam’s bad luck. She hadn’t reckoned on Daja herself - or on her friends and teachers. 

The noble girl had said, “They’ll think you bargained until Daja was addled, to get her to sell at a price like that.” But Daja had been the one to wear Polyam down. Like all her people, Polyam had seen bargaining from the cradle and she’d never seen anyone, whether Tsaw’ha, merchant or xurdin, give ground like Daja had. She thought she understood, now, why her friend had chosen to stay a smith. Any lugsha-mimander (what an impossibility that phrase would have been, two months ago) who made such marvels by accident would have a bright future in trade. Free of the ties of family, Daja could craft as she wished, but still be Tsaw’ha.

And it wasn’t just that tradition Daja had overturned.

With a flash of mingled guilt and gratitude, Polyam remembered Daja proclaiming that trade must be done directly with her, as trangshi, or not at all. This next deal would mean at least six months’ business for the caravan. A successful sale would generate enough zokin that Mother would have to offer Polyam more contracts, as Trader custom dictated. Here again Polyam had the advantage; she had something they wanted. Time to press it home. Please, Trader and Bookkeeper, let this work.

“I’ll seal the trade,” she said quietly, “on one condition.”

Mother froze in the middle of tending the fire. Eyes the colour of woodsmoke snapped to Polyam’s face and scrutinised it. “What condition?”

“That I conduct all transactions with these customers. Not just the final trade with Daja on our next trip to Summersea, but everything. From start to finish, alone, without interference from you or any of the other daka.”

Mother’s eyes widened, making her crow’s feet stretch. Then, slowly, she nodded and plucked two keys from a drawer.

“The keys to the stores,” she said a little stiffly, offering them to Polyam in the palm of one azure-bangled hand. “Choose what you feel would appeal to Yanjingyi nobles. Do not disgrace me or Tenth Caravan Idaram.”

Silently Polyam took it, inclined her head and threaded her way down the moonlit string of parked caravans, towards the cargo hold. Only when she reached it did she close her eye in relief. She would light an extra incense stick to Oti tonight, for Daja and her saati in Emelan.


	3. Cleansed

_The Sea of Grass, Namorn-Yanjing border, the thirtieth day of Hearth Moon, 1036 K.F._  
  
The water was icy, this far north - clear and clean, fed by mountain-stream meltwater. They saw innumerable wild horses, the occasional herd of yak and a settlement or two, but for the most part, nothing but pasture for miles around. The grass was velvet underfoot, and the ground reassuringly firm: no chance of landslides.  
  
Polyam stayed out late, long past sunset, and breathed it in deep; this was cold as she’d known it from childhood, growing up in a Trader city in northern Lairan. The open space chimed her isolation back at her in crystalline harmonies, struck it like a gong, raising echoes; she felt at one with the landscape and the silence, instead of dwarfed by them. The feeling purified her, more than any qunsuanen ever had. 


	4. Water-Ways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Making a splash (200 words)

_Yangzhou Tent City, The Sea of Grass, Namorn-Yanjing border, the third day of Wolf Moon, 1037 K.F._

  
The tentbaths were clearly made for practicality rather than comfort. They were dim and compact, with only a dipper, a cake of yak-fat soap, a washcloth and a pumice stone for scrubbing. The candles, also of yak grease, gave off a strong, animal scent and thick grey smoke.

After weeks of meltwater baths, however, Polyam was in the lap of luxury. She didn’t have to find flatter terrain fifty feet along the stream, she could simply walk ten feet across the grass from the caravan. She didn’t have to hold anyone’s hand, grip her staff like a vice, or slide or crawl along mossy or gravelly slopes for fear of slipping. Instead of a rock or tree stump, there was a pine bench for her iron leg. On it was a plush cotton towel, neatly folded; no need for the thin, half-soaked rag she normally dried over the fire with clothespegs.

Best of all, since Yanjingyis bathed alone, each bath had been freshly filled and she had some privacy. Steam rose invitingly from the small wooden tub. With a smile, Polyam dumped her garments into the bag she used for soiled clothing and began to rinse off the day’s sweat.


	5. As Good as the Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pravunni’s first meal with the new daka brings some unexpected revelations.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for **ableism**. Some as regards Polyam’s appearance, and most regarding her status in the caravan.

_Tenth Caravan Idaram, en route to The Realms of the Sun, the sixth day of Blood Moon, 1036 KF_

Polyam arrived at supper late. The others, mostly daka and horse handlers, were already seated around the kitchen table. Unlike her companions, who mumbled greetings to their plates, Pravunni forced herself to look at Polyam and smile. Meeting only one eye was uncomfortable where you were used to seeing two. That, along with the deep pocked scars which twisted the left side of her mouth into a permanent sneer, made it hard to tell what Polyam was thinking.  
  
To Pravunni’s surprise, she received a smile back. They’d been acquaintances once, before her accident, but since then Polyam had taken to eating alone, for although folk were permitted to eat with wirok, no one wanted to be seen or shamed for doing so. For the first time Pravunni realised that meant Polyam hadn’t been allowed to join her own mother or aunt at mealtimes.  
  
“Something for you from the kitchen, gilavna?” asked Kriyan, addressing her nails. Pravunni winced and shifted uncomfortably. Normally an honorific for the gilav’s son or daughter, in the senior daka’s mouth, the word held more than a bite of acid. Kriyan was implying that Polyam had no right to eat here, because she’d secured the prime trade with the Yanjingyi nobles by Gilav Chandrisa’s favour alone.  
  
Did everything Kriyan ate curdle in her mouth? It was one thing to speak so to her junior and trainee daka, like Pravunni, and another to be rude to someone who had helped save all their lives, wirok or not. Two years ago, Kriyan had addressed Polyam with the honey-sweetness reserved for one who wants the best horseflesh. It gave Pravunni the shivers that Kriyan could now muster so much bile for the same person. Besides, Gilav Chandrisa’s word was law.  
  
“As the kaqs say, a change is as good as a rest,” said Polyam. Was that amusement Pravunni heard?  
  
There was dead silence. Everyone else stared, then looked away, as if Polyam hadn’t spoken. In equal silence, Polyam set down her plate and began to eat her couscous, spiced carrots and stuffed eggplants, as calmly as if she was alone.  
  
Then, slowly, Rawayun, Parima, Jaipal and Alisa, who were all sitting on Polyam’s side of the table, stood and moved towards the main dining area. Pravunni went cold all over. Some emotion she couldn’t name - rage, indignation, shame or sheer contrariness — impelled her to rise and sit next to Polyam. She ignored Kriyan’s outraged screech and Danyush’s flinch.  
  
“I don’t need your pity,” muttered Polyam, out of the corner of her mouth. “Or did you forget no one cares what a wirok says?”  
  
“You’re a daka now,” said Pravunni. Then she realised what she had said, and belatedly bit her tongue. “I mean… I’m sorry, I didn’t…”  
  
“You’re not helping your case,” said Polyam. “Either I’m a daka, and good enough to associate with, or I’m not.” There was definite frost in her voice this time, a crow-harshness that made Pravunni feel she deserved every cold look she got.  
  
Mercifully, neither of them spoke for the rest of the meal. When her plate was empty, Polyam walked over and dumped it into the wash-bucket, the thump-thump of her iron leg against the floor audible over the others’ conversation, the sizzle of hot food and the clatter of the cast-iron skillets and serving spoons.  
  
“Well,” she said pleasantly. “I’ll let you all get back to gossiping about me behind my back.” She nodded at Kriyan, who was glaring at her fit to pickle onion. “If you’re not careful, cousin, your face will freeze like that.”  
  
Pravunni bit her lip, counted to a hundred, tidied her own dishes without a word to any of them, and stalked out of the dining caravan.  
  
Polyam had become dour, taciturn and bitter as oversteeped tea after her accident. When she spoke at all, she spoke to offend. Now Pravunni was beginning to see why. In the other woman’s shoes, she might have strangled half of Tenth Caravan Idaram in short order, especially Kriya, with her serpent’s tongue. Next time, she would have the courage to speak up. This time, she would make amends.


	6. Rituals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to Gale for their suggestions for items for Polyam’s shrine. ‘Polished, round-cut’ means cabochon, but I’m guessing Polyam doesn’t know/Emelan doesn’t have that word.
> 
> The Hataran soldier’s outfit has been taken wholesale from Janissaries’ uniforms.

_Tenth Caravan Idaram, en route to The Realms of the Sun, the sixth day of Blood Moon, 1036 KF_

After her disorienting supper with the daka, Polyam went, as she did every Firesday, to fill her small brass vessel at the stream. Although some used mimander-purified water set aside for the purpose, Polyam preferred fresh. The ritual of cleaning her shrine always made her feel more at peace, more grounded, and she liked to do it properly.

The walk and the solitude cleared her head; by the time she reached her wagon, her eye no longer threatened to spill over. Besides, weeping like a child over things that couldn’t be changed did no good.

She ran careful fingers over the shrine’s polished mahogany surface, now whitened and scratched a little with nineteen years’ travel. Mother had given it to her as a fifth birthday present; she’d picked it out from a carpenter’s shop in Lairan, together with a shipment of other, custom-made goods. Polyam had added treasures to it, over the years, things she’d been gifted or had bought.

Each of these objects had to be cleaned with a soft cloth. First came the bracelet of polished, round-cut Olarten rose quartz she’d received at her Tsaw’ha ceremony, then a deep blue bowl painted with a motif of white octopi, a purchase from Tharios. Inside the bowl were six cowrie-shell hairpins and a bronze cloak-pin with an inlaid citrine. Next was her wooden figurine of the Hataran soldier, dressed in full autumn-brown frock-coat and the distinctive, tall cap worn by the king’s guard, with a yellow dot of paint to signify a jewel and a turmeric-coloured feather for the long, dangling tail of silk.

The brass god-statues were the most important, so she saved them for last, bowing to them before picking them up. As she washed them and set them back on their plinth, they looked back at her, their faces as impassive as ever.

“People like Pravunni,” Polyam told them wearily, “march in and think they can fix things.” At least all the others had made no secret of their dislike for her. Once wirok, always wirok. It was unsettling when people shifted allegiances: they tried to make your bitter tea taste sweet.

 _Is that so bad?_ asked an inner voice. It sounded like the same one that had questioned the Tsaw’ha’s dismissal of lugsha, back in Gold Ridge. _Isn’t it better than being scorned? A little change won’t hurt them, surely, any more than it’s hurt you._

After all, a Trader’s life, like the weights of Koma’s scales or the balance of Oti’s logbooks, was all change, as the gods had decreed. Weather was in flux, trade goods cycled from season to season, even routes varied slightly. It was the strict hierarchies of Trader society and tradition that kept the wheels turning. But if the gods themselves changed those traditions, where did that leave her?


	7. Broken Circle

_The twenty-ninth day of Snow Moon, 1053 K.F., the country town of Aikan, Capchen_

The mage-tester’s front room was draughty, without even a fire on this chilly morning; he hadn’t offered Xiaoling so much as a cup of tea. She had seen less stingy paupers. 

“For each child, the cost will be three gold astrels an hour.” He blinked dull chestnut eyes at the safe-box, as if already imagining her gold clinking into his belt-purse.

“Three gold astrels!” she exclaimed. “What in Hebei’s name do you test for?” Ma and Baba had paid in silver to have her and her three sisters tested, and that only had been because Rosefinch Circle Temple needed an official certificate of competence from a mage tester who had earned their credentials from an approved school before it could reimburse the cost. Many folk sent their children to Living Circle temples outside the cities, out in the steppes of the north, the golden Great Madussa Desert in the south, the rainforests in the west and the red quinoa fields of the southeast, without paying one extra tal. Baba had growled about it, but not for nothing had Rosefinch earned its reputation as one of the prime schools for ambient magic in the world, to rival Lightsbridge and Winding Circle.

Xiaoling didn’t know exactly what three gold astrels was in zhan, but she’d bet it wasn’t worth the piece of official-looking parchment this Master Eldridge, or whatever he called himself, was waving under her nose. She kept her face as impassive as Birina might have done, however, and took it.

‘Master Selwyn Eldridge, contractor, Broken Circle Temple, Ninver’, proclaimed the title, in bold cursive. Above it was a neat drawing of a circlet of stones with one missing. She ran her eye over the rest of the sheet:

_We test for traditional magic and deviant magic-adjacent traits, such as elemental ancestry, possession by malevolent spirits, and curses. Ages 3 and up. Payment strictly upfront. Cancellation fee of 30 silver crescents may apply._

Xiaoling’s skin crawled. ‘Traditional’ magic? Spirits? How were these Broken Circle people allowed to practise in this backwater? The next closest temple, according to the maps, was a choice between Myrtle Circle in northwestern Anderran, or Winding Circle itself.

“What are your testing methods?” asked Xiaoling sharply. She fixed him with what Birina called her butterfly-pin glare. “And your credentials?”

“We have a very rigorous questionnaire,” he said stiffly and rapidly. Xiaoling, a veteran of hundreds of civil court cases, recognised a memorised speech when she heard one. “Tested by Honoured Echinacea herself, who has fifteen years of experience as an Earth mage and five as an Honoured Dedicate. Our testimonials say we’re the best in all Capchen.”

Xiaoling kept frigid silence and counted to a hundred and eighty. It was a technique she’d used for fifteen years as a lawyer in the courts of Geyuan province, and it hadn’t failed her yet.

He squirmed, fidgeting with his fat silk purse. “My credentials are - are from Olive Circle Temple in Gansar. I can decrease the fee, if you wish…”

“I do not wish,” whispered Xiaoling, sick at heart. If Kurchali merchants as a whole had not been so penny-pinching, or so vain of their education system that they believed Yanjingyis ignorant of the simplest tenets of magic, the business of mage testing would have been simpler. How many nanshurs-in-training slipped through the cracks? How many didn’t have parents like her and Birina, who could afford expensive sea voyages abroad and years of temple fees? And how were they supposed to get him there in the first place?

She sighed and resigned herself to waiting for Polyam to arrive; only next month, thank Wei of the Orchard and Yating of the Harvest both. If Polyam couldn’t help, then gods willing, she’d hire someone to help Birina look after the place and take the child herself.

******************

_The fifteenth day of Carp Moon, 1053 KF, Aikan, Capchen_

The twinge in Polyam’s knee eased the moment she stepped into her friends’ house, and she sighed with relief and set her staff down. It was spring in Capchen, but a chill lingered in the air. Extra warmth always made the iron in her leg feel more like flesh. As Polyam and Birina hugged and chatted, Xiaoling made the tea.

Polyam was startled to realise how much she’d missed her friends’ easy chatter. Two years was a long time between visits, and letters weren’t the same. Of course, there was no law against keeping in touch with your regular customers from time to time, but making saati of them bordered on unusual. All her fellow daka except Pravunni had looked at Polyam curiously last time she’d come back to the caravan after spending three nights at their house. Alisa had ribbed her about leaving the Trader life and becoming kaqua’ha, or non-Trader, as some did for love (as Birina had done); Polyam had told her tartly to get her head out of the clouds. If being a onetime wirok had not driven her from caravan life, she doubted anything would, even friends such as these two. If a certain woman from Thirteenth Caravan Achebe she’d been writing to for two months crossed her mind from time to time, well, marriage was another knot altogether, and a harder one than she cared to untangle for the moment.

On the table lay sesame-and-rice balls with pickled mangoes, sliced plantains, spiced chickpea crisps, dried jackfruit, and sticky rice buns stuffed with honey and chicken. The earthy scent of barley tea wafted from the teapot.

“Isn’t this a spread,” said Polyam, raising an eyebrow. “And most of it from your fruit trees and spice beds. Indulging in some bribery? Or are you trying to set me up with the baker’s daughter?” She nodded at the buns. 

“Talk needs food,” quipped Xiaoling. It was an old joke. “What kind of hosts would we be if we let you collapse from hunger? But we do need a favour - a rather large one, actually.” Briefly she told Polyam about their son’s magic and her meeting with Master Eldridge.

Birina shook her head in disgust. “Merchants. Jishen through and through,” she said, nodding to Da Lien, who was busily moulding different coloured lumps of clay, grass, leaves, soil and twigs into a pyramid on the verandah. “We’d take him ourselves, but Xiaoling gets seasick and we can’t spare the orchard. You said you have trustworthy friends in Summersea. We thought… if we could pay for his passage, would they accept him at Winding Circle?”

Polyam smiled, thinking of what Daja’s sister Trisana would make of this Eldridge. She had earned her credential at Lightsbridge in vision magics, with a minor qualification in mind-healing, and was now an itinerant mage who specialised in finding children whose ambient magic had gone untested.

“I can do one better,” she said, sipping at her tea. “Let me see if I can get you someone reliable to go with him, a cut-price rate, and a discounted mage-test to boot. I happen to know one or two people who would be interested.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on Broken Circle: This temple was in the early editions of The Magic in the Weaving/Sandry’s Book as the temple Tris is rescued from. In reprints this has changed to Stone Circle. 
> 
> For my purposes, Stone Circle is now defunct, but Broken Circle is well and truly running.
> 
> kaqua’ha as a neutral word for non-Trader is headcanon from a discussion on the Tamora Pierce server, where falliblefabrial suggested White Traders might have had a longer, politer word to denote an ordinary non-Trader, which then became shortened to ‘kaq’, which subsequently took on the meaning of ‘dirt underfoot’ that we see in MitW.


End file.
